This is a new video, which has also gone viral, which bears witness to the struggle of women in Iran. Iranian judicial authorities announced on Saturday that they had ordered the arrest of two women after the broadcast of a video showing a man attacking them for not wearing a veil.
An arrest warrant was also issued against the man “for insulting and disturbing public order”, reported the Mizan Online site, the agency of the judiciary. In the video widely shared on social networks, we see a man entering a store, shouting at two women without veils and then pouring a pot of what appears to be yogurt over their heads. The person behind the counter then throws him out of the store.
An arrest warrant has been issued against “the two women for committing a prohibited act by removing the hijab”, Mizan Online said. “The store owner received a warning (…) so that he complies with the rules (…) of Sharia”, added the site.
Unveiled women will be prosecuted “ruthlessly”
The incident comes as Iran has been the scene of a crackdown on protests following the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating the strict dress code imposed on women in the Islamic Republic. Several hundred people including dozens of members of the security forces were killed and thousands more arrested during these demonstrations, generally described by the authorities as “riots”, fomented by Israel and Western countries.
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Iranian justice chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei on Saturday threatened to “ruthlessly” prosecute women who appear in public without disclosure, Iranian media reported Saturday, as quoted in The Guardian. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning follows a statement from the Interior Ministry on Thursday that strengthened the government’s law on wearing the hijab.
“Disclosure is tantamount to hostility with [nos] values,” said Ejei, quoted by several news sites. Those “who commit such abnormal acts will be punished” and would be “ruthlessly pursued”, he said, without saying what the punishment would entail. On Saturday again, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi once again called on Iranian women to wear the veil out of “religious obligation”.